Home for erring and outcast girls A novel

Review by New York Times Review

The Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls was a real-life Texas almshouse for "fallen" young ladies at the turn of the 20th century. Kibler's novel rotates among the stories of spitfire Lizzie, who has clawed her way out of the gutter to protect her daughter; fragile Mattie, who has lost her sickly child; and Cate, a modern-day librarian with her own tortured past who becomes obsessed with the Berachah story. Cate and these two downtrodden women - and even the haughty "sisters" of the Home, who herd their enervated flock onto the path of righteousness through a relentless drumbeat of prayer and piety - endure tragedy at the hands of cruel parents and predatory men. They suffer, they grieve, they try to withdraw from life, until they finally just square their shoulders and get on with it. If Kibler has one theme, it's the formidable resilience of women. The novel is so rich in detail it becomes almost mundane, but these wounded birds still make you root for them. The Home is an oasis plopped in the midst of the dusty Texas plains, and Kibler's account of its inhabitants, their doomed histories and the lifeboat into which they are all crammed is a rich saga of plucky women pulled back from the brink. But when the narrative moves to Cate's high school days in the 1990s and then to her current, eremitic life, Kibler takes her foot off the gas and coasts. The revelation of Cate's teenage secret lands as a left-field jolt, a disingenuous turn so jarring I had to go back and flip pages to see where I'd missed the clues. Lizzie's story, gruesome and hellish, is at times hard to endure, but it serves as a testament to the awesome power of a mother's love. Yet the true gem turns out to be Mattie, who breaks the Home's chain of dependency to undertake a thrilling journey of self-discovery in Oklahoma City. It's like watching a wild Texas rose, battered by storms, bloom again in the spring.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

Kibler's sophomore effort (after Calling Me Home, 2013) is based on a real place in turn-of-the-century Texas: the Berachah Industrial Home, a sanctuary for ruined women. Lizzie Bates and Mattie McBride seek refuge there in 1905; Lizzie has a young daughter and a drug habit, while Mattie mourns the death of her son and her abandonment by the child's father. They form a strong, though at times tempestuous, bond that lasts decades as they each attempt to start over Mattie by building a life outside the Berachah Home, and Lizzie by remaining at the sanctuary. In alternating chapters set in 2017, librarian Cate Sutton uncovers historical records from the home, and the research dredges up memories from her upbringing in a conservative Christian household, forcing her to confront the ghosts of a two-decades-old trauma. Although Lizzie and Mattie's narrative arc occasionally meanders, Cate's chapters are absorbing, and this is a moving, well-researched, character-driven tale sure to be savored by fans of Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours (2017) and Christina Baker Kline's The Orphan Train (2013).--Martha Waters Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Kibler (Calling Me Home) tells a heartbreaking story of women a century apart who have experienced trauma and attempt to move forward. Cate Sutton is a university librarian in 2017 Arlington, Tex., and she becomes fascinated by archived records of the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls. Cate and her work-study student Laurel Medina bond over their own murky struggles as well as the story of Lizzie Bates, which is part of the home's archives. In 1903, Lizzie takes her baby daughter to stay with her at the Texas home as Lizzie recovers from sexual abuse and drug addiction. There, she befriends another woman, Mattie Corder, and embraces the religious messages and safety provided by Brother JT Upchurch and his staff. Lizzie eventually stays on to continue helping troubled girls. As Cate and Laurel study the archives, they find strength to confront their own traumas together. Kibler's poignant story effectively captures the raw pain and anger these women experience, but also shows them moving forward and finding support in other women. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Framing a historical story with a contemporary one as in her debut, Calling Me Home, Kibler brings to life a little-known part of Texas history-the operation of the Berachah Home for the Redemption and Protection of Erring Girls, which bucked the conventions of the day and helped unwed mothers keep their children, in the early 1900s. A century later, young university -librarian Cate Sutton, escaping a past trauma, becomes fascinated by the women of the home through their stories in the library's archives, as does her student assistant, Laurel. While the author's debut dealt with racism, this novel addresses topics of sexuality and women's issues through the portrayal of two female friendships: Lizzie Bates and Mattie McBride in the 1900s, and Cate and Laurel-all of them in need of escaping their histories. VERDICT While these characters may not be as captivating to readers as Calling Me Home's unlikely pair of friends, this tale of resilient women has the varied story lines and well-researched historical background to make it a popular book club selection. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/19.]-Laurie Cavanaugh, Thayer P.L., Braintree, MA © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An early-20th-century Texas refuge for wayward girls inspires a troubled librarian a century later in Kibler's second novel (Calling Me Home, 2013).In 2017, Cate moves to Arlington, Texas, mostly, the reader gathers, to escape her past. Employed by the University of Texas as an assistant librarian, Cate becomes obsessed with the musty records of the Berachah Industrial Home, a church-run shelter for women and girls then known as fallen, erring, or waywardabused women, some pregnant out of wedlock, often forced into prostitution. Cate also visits Berachah's only remaining vestige, its cemetery. Interspersed with Cate's story are scenes from early-1900s Berachah, where Mattie, an unwed mother, and Lizzie, who was raped by her stepbrother and deserted by husband and family, relate their experiences in close third-person narration. Mattie's ailing son dies as she arrives at the home, and her one attempt at prostitution has left her pregnant. Taken in by Berachah along with her young daughter, Lizzie goes through heroin withdrawal. The momentum of the first half of the book is sluggish. Cate's first-person narrative ranges between the present and 1998 during her senior year in high school. The only daughter of fundamentalist Christians, she is deeply enmeshed in her church community. Much space is devoted to a deceptively anodyne account of falling in love with new classmate River while being asked to the prom by the church golden boy, Seth. In the second half of the book, conflicts finally emerge. For the Berachah girls, it's Mattie's bid for independence in Oklahoma City and Lizzie's ill-advised decision to return home to her mother. A major development in Cate's teenage life is withheld until later in the book, and readers may question how Cate, as the narrator, could censor her thoughts as to such a crucial revelation. Readers may also question the relevance of the parallel narratives until compelling ironies emerge. Not least of these is the role of fundamentalist Christianity: as rescuer in Berachah's time, as oppressor in Cate's.As this novel powerfully illustrates, the terminology has changed but gender discrimination persists. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Cate Arlington, Texas August 2017 I crawl out of a hotel bed while it's still dark to meet the movers at my new house near the university. My furniture and boxes, enough to fill a few rooms--but not enough to weigh me down--were the last loaded into the huge van that pulled up to my old place. First in, first out. They place things where I want them and assemble my dining table and bed in thirty minutes. The house isn't much bigger than my apartment was, and with an extra bedroom and a garage, my belongings hardly dent the space. The van rumbles off to meet the next wanderers, and I take my first real breath since I gave strangers access to my possessions. My running shoes are near the top of my suitcase. I ditch my flip-flops and tie the laces quickly. The first thing most people do when they complete a move is unpack the bedsheets or locate the coffeemaker. Not me. What convinces me I can start over again is reminding myself that when the time comes, I'll still know how to run. I drop my key in my pocket and stretch only a moment before beginning a slow jog along a circle drive that borders the neighborhood of midcentury homes, with mine at the back. The air is thick with the heady scent of flowers, and lush, dense grass covers lawns instead of the usual pale stubble of late summer. After crisscrossing the country a few times, I worried that returning to Texas in August would be depressing. Everyone has a different theory about the record-breaking rain this year. I'm just happy to see color. The morning humidity, though, has me dripping before I even pick up my pace, and breathing takes extra effort. At the edge of the neighborhood, I pause. A park is visible from my new backyard. It's the last quiet weekend of the year. Soon, it will teem with students playing intramurals, studying, or socializing, instead of the solitude I seek this morning. It's a good day to explore. The park is small, and thick with trees. Only a few paved paths connect the busy roads and a parking lot, and it takes no time to run the length each way. On my second circuit, I cut through a playing field near the back edge to see how vulnerable my yard is. The campus police patrol the park and nearby neighborhoods, but now that I see how secluded the area is, I'm relieved my wood fence is in good repair. Fortunately, an even taller industrial fence makes it nearly impossible to access it from the field. My windows and yard aren't visible at all. I slow my pace, cool down as much as the humidity allows, then walk, taking a long draw on my water bottle. The sun is at the treetops now, and the sound of traffic is increasing, but still muffled by huge oaks. I walk toward the far corner of the park, curious what lies beyond in the dusky woods. I'm surprised to find another grassy area surrounded by a simple chain-link fence. It's a small cemetery, memorial stones scattered here and there--an odd discovery in this modern-day park. Perhaps early settlers buried their dead here, and the city graciously fenced the space instead of incorporating it into the park. A historical marker catches my eye near the gate. I struggle to read it in the early-morning light. Site of Berachah Home and Cemetery . . . The Berachah Rescue Society was organized at Waco in 1894 by the Rev. J. T. Upchurch (b. 1870) for the protection of homeless girls and unwed mothers. Nine years later, he opened the Berachah Industrial Home at this site. Ten buildings were located here, including a print shop for publication of The Purity Journal. The cemetery, which contains more than eighty graves, was first used in 1904 . . . Eighty graves? It hardly looks big enough. Before I can finish reading the plaque, though, my gaze is drawn to movement inside the fence. A young woman lies flat in the grass, raven hair splayed against the green. She gazes straight up beneath a tall, jagged tree near the edge of the graveyard. Gray and leafless, the tree appears to be dead--for years--perhaps struck by lightning. It's split nearly straight down the middle. I don't want to startle her, but I worry, in spite of an intense desire to leave well enough alone. Is she ill? Injured? Or just resting? Suddenly, though, she stretches to stand, retrieves an overstuffed bag, and exits the cemetery without a word or even a glance in my direction. I shiver as she disappears beyond the dark canopy of trees. I'm not superstitious. I don't believe any place or person is haunted by anything but the past. But suddenly, that old saying about a ghost walking over a grave crosses my mind. And suddenly, I can't wait to get home.   Lizzie Bates Tyler, Texas Fall 1904 The two ladies dressed all in white hovered over where Lizzie and Docie lay huddled in a fetid pile of rags, and she thought it was angels come, finally, to take them away up to heaven. Her heart quickened. She'd figured on the Lord forgetting her and her girl--or maybe just turning his back. Keys clinked as the jail keeper unlocked his steel cage, shoved into a corner of the room, with rusting shelves for bunks in each half. They were alone in it but for a man sleeping off drink on the other side. The angels bent inside to whisper over her and Docie. Now she feared they'd take her girl but leave her to die alone and suffer eternal hell. She wouldn't have blamed the Lord for thinking to do it that way, for Docie was surely not liable for her mother's sins. Even if Lizzie was not worthy, her Docie was innocence itself, though her tiny body was riddled with the same sick. The child slept at her teat whenever they were together, but Lizzie couldn't bear to think what might have befallen Docie when she couldn't watch her every minute of the day and night. Either way, Lizzie was to blame. She had let her down so many ways. No more. She wouldn't let anyone, heavenly or not, snatch her girl without a struggle. She sat as high as the metal above her head allowed and wrapped her arms around Docie. The little girl flirted with waking, but her exhaustion was plain, and she slumped against her mother, cheeks fever red and dark lashes scarcely visible against the purple smudges beneath her eyes. Docie could not fight; it was up to her mother to see that they remained together. But the angel ladies didn't move to take Docie. They only stooped to look, speaking hushed words Lizzie couldn't plainly make out. The swirling in her head and burning in her throat made it too hard to ask their intentions. Perhaps she had not moved to gather Docie closer after all. Perhaps she had simply wished it. Or, perhaps Docie was already close, as she should be. Lizzie caught scraps of what they said, and the jailer's voice rose as he described their history and condition. How they both suffered from a foul disease. How Lizzie had earned her keep out at the county farm lately, cooking for the Negro inmates. How the farm superintendent had taken her into his own shack to live in sin, feeding her heroin to subdue her, and then passed her to the chain gang boss when he tired of her. How she'd taken sick, and it crippled her so badly she couldn't stand. And finally, how they'd sent her and Docie to the jail, no regard for whether they lived or died. Her skin crawled. Damn the farm boss. While many around her had been hooked on dope for years, she'd managed to keep off it until he'd sensed her desperation. Then she took it gladly. But she hadn't needed subduing, not like a wild animal. She'd needed to forget. Lizzie had lived hand-to-mouth as long as the jailer had known of her, a decade or more, drifting in and out of town, lately only with her girl, but for years with her people--a no-good cracker and his half-Injun wife. Docie, a wispy towhead with skin so milky the blue showed through, had piercing, near-black eyes from Choctaw still running in those veins, same as her ma and granny. Lizzie marveled at all the jailer knew from his tenure of locking her up when she had nowhere else to go. One thing they were all sure of: She and Docie weren't long for this world. One or both would slip away soon, with or without angels to guide them. To hear him say it plain was a comfort. She was weary of fighting for a place for her and Docie on this earth. The women gasped at the jail keeper's speech. Had they come only to eye her condition? Society ladies who wanted to witness the scum at the bottom to comfort themselves? Then they could return to their pillowy houses to preach the perils of drink and heroin and impurity. She shrugged. If she could be a warning, she reckoned her life had some sliver of purpose after all. She cowered when one lady inched closer to kneel near the pile of shredded bedding. "You poor dear. We're from the King's Daughters. The jailer's wife asked if we'd take you and your little one to a place we know--a wonderful new home for young women where you could find healing and comfort, Lord willing." Now Lizzie grinned. Maybe, instead, the lady was a haint! Who'd suggest such a thing? But the woman stretched her ungloved hand to touch Lizzie's shoulder, and Lizzie felt it, warm and firm, and next, the back of Docie's head, unafraid of the pus-filled sores on their skin or what clouded Lizzie's vision until it was near impossible to make out the woman's features. Tears cut a path through the crusted grime on her cheeks. She nodded, then fell into a stupor, blissfully free of nightmares. Excerpted from Home for Erring and Outcast Girls: A Novel by Julie Kibler All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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